WND EXCLUSIVE

AAACK! Girls getting eyeful in locker room

University 'nondiscrimination' policy lets man change with female swim team

Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three decades with the Associated Press, as well as several Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and homicidal survivalists. He is also a photographer whose scenic work has been used commercially.

“Little girls should not be exposed to naked men, period,” says David Hacker, a senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom.

And that’s why the public interest law firm is calling on officials at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., to do something to make their campus safe after it was revealed that, because of its controversial “nondiscrimination” policies, the school was allowing a grown man to get naked and change into his swimwear right alongside a girls swim team.

“The idea that the college and the local district attorney will not act to protect young girls is appalling. What Americans are seeing here is the poisoned fruit of so-called ‘nondiscrimination’ laws and policies. Placing this man’s proclivities ahead of protecting little girls is beyond acceptable.”

Nevertheless, a school spokesman told WND the school would make sure “transgendered individuals” would continue to have access to the women’s locker room, and the school would uphold “civil rights” for all.

“I mean, uh, at this point, too, we have established a, um, privacy screens. These measures should offer everyone more privacy,” the school spokesman said.

ADF jumped into action when it discovered the situation by sending the school a letter warning of the possible consequences of failing to act.

The letter to Matt Newman, recreation director, and Art Costantino, vice president of student affairs, pointed out that the school’s pool and locker rooms are used by swim teams from Capital High School and Olympia High School, as well as children with Evergreen Swim Club and the Aquatics Academy.

“Most of these students are minors, and range from ages 6 to 18,” the letter said. “On several occasions recently, the children saw a naked man in the women’s locker room sauna who was displaying his male genitalia. The children saw him through the sauna’s glass door, which allowed him a plain view of the young girls while they were changing. The children notified their swim coach, who called police.”

The letter explained that the man, identified as Evergreen student Colleen Francis, age 45, “to be the man in the women’s locker room.”

“Sources indicate that Francis believes he is a woman, even though he is biologically a man. According to the police report, despite Francis’s obvious violation of Washington’s indecent exposure statute, Wash. Rev. Code 91.88.010, the local district attorney declined to pursue charges,” the letter said.

“We are aware Evergreen intends to allow Francis to continue to use the women’s locker room pursuant to its nondiscrimination policy,” the letter said.

However, the legal team warns the college that the situation “endangers the young girls who use Evergreen’s locker room and pool.”

“If harm befalls one of these students, Evergreen and its employees may be held liable for damages. Evergreen has an ‘affirmative duty to use ordinary care to keep the premises in a reasonably safe condition.'”

The lawyers said that letting a grown man use the women’s locker room and expose himself “while young girls are changing demonstrates a clear failure to keep Evergreen’s premises in a safe condition.”

“Placing someone in a known danger with deliberate indifference to her personal, physical safety violates her Fourteenth Amendment rights under the United State Constitution,” the letter said.

ADF officials, who had been alerted to the situation by parents concerned for their children’s safety, told the school: “Any reasonable person would view this as dangerous to the young girls involved. The fact that this individual was sitting in plain view of young girls changing into their swimsuits puts you and Evergreen on notice of possible future harm.”

The alliance said the school’s installation of curtains with instructions that girls change behind them “does not solve the problem.”

The police report notes that the person was “sitting with her [sic] legs open with her male genitalia showing.”

A swim coach who made the report said that girls 6 to 18 years of age were present.

ADF noted that the state’s law is clear: “A person is guilty of indecent exposure if he or she intentionally makes any open and obscene exposure of his or her person or the person of another knowing that such conduct is likely to cause reasonable affront or alarm.”